For a second Florence stood there trembling, irresolute. Her mind worked rapidly. To flee would be folly. There was no escaping those roaring beasts. The treatment she might hope to receive from her bitterest enemy would be better. At once, having decided this question, she dashed toward the light.
Hardly had she gone a dozen paces when, with a little cry of surprise and terror, she stumbled over something soft and yielding, then went down sprawling.
At once she was on hand and knees, feeling for the thing that had tripped her. In a second her hands were upon it. Not another second was needed to tell her what it was.
“Hallie,” she whispered. “Hallie! What has happened? Hallie! Get up!”
But the form beside her neither answered nor moved.
In desperation she groped about her for a stone. Having found two of the right size, she crouched there like a panther beside her wounded young. At the same time, in as steady a tone as she could command, she shouted:
“Hey there, you! Call off your dogs! Do you want them to murder an innocent child?”
One instant there came a flood of light from a large door, the next the light was blocked by the form of the largest man Florence had ever seen, and there came such a giant’s roar as quite drowned the baying of the dogs and set the rocks fairly shaking with echoes.
The echoes died away and the dogs were silent. The giant did not speak again, but stood there peering into the darkness. The girl caught the snap-snap of a bat’s jaws as he flew over. She heard the steady tick of her watch. Then of a sudden there came a movement close behind her. Wheeling about, she tried to peer into the darkness but saw nothing. There came no other sound.
So a moment passed on into eternity, and yet another. Then the giant’s voice boomed again: